Wikileaks has donated $15,000 to the Bradley Manning Support Network. Manning has been imprisoned in solitary confinement since July, charged with transferring classified data and transmitting it to an unauthorised source.

It's taken Wikileaks seven months to honour its pledge to pay Manning's legal fees - and the gift still leaves the support group a few dollars short of its $115,000 target.

Manning initially spent two months in a military jail in Kuwait, before being shipped to Virginia. He is barred from exercising in his cell and is denied pillow and sheets. He is also denied TV, radio and newspapers.

A college friend who visits Manning regularly has said that Manning appears "very weak from a lack of exercise" and that “psychologically, he has difficulty keeping up with some conversational topics".

Assange, meanwhile, has signed lucrative book deals worth $1.7m (£1.1m).

"There has been an unconscionable failure [in conventional journalism] to protect sources," said Assange last July. "It is those sources who take all the risks... journalists don't take their job seriously." ®